


i've got love to give

by esljackzimmermann (QuietLittleVoices)



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 19:51:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3908479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuietLittleVoices/pseuds/esljackzimmermann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack has a crush. A really, really obvious crush. Shitty knows, and he's not going to meddle; honest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i've got love to give

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first 'real' Check, Please! fic. Comments would be appreciated !

“C’mon, bro, who is it?” Shitty asked imploringly as they walked towards the kitchen, where some Top 40 pop artist could be heard babbling on about lost love.

“No one,” Jack tells him, looking at him like he’s humouring him.

But Shitty had always known Jack almost better than Jack knew himself, so he raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “ _Bro_ ,” he said seriously, “c’mon. Tell me. I won’t tell anyone, pinky promise.”

“I _don’t_ ,” he paused for effect, “have a _crush_ on _anyone_ , Shitty.” Jack pushed past his friend and into the Haus kitchen.

“Mark my words, Jack Laurent Zimmermann, I _will_ find out,” he said, in the kind of voice Jack heard in movies where the hero states his need for vengeance.

Jack sighed and shook his head, knowing that there was no way to make Shitty let it go. He’d just have to be solid in his denial. Jack looked around the kitchen and saw the person who’d already been in there, listening to music and baking. “Hey, Bittle,” he said.

Bitty smiled in the big, honest way that he always did. Jack was pretty sure he’d never seen Bitty fake a smile in the entire time he’d known him. “Mornin’, Jack. How was your run? I heard you leave real early this morning.”

“Same as always.” Jack shrugged.

Shitty pushed open the kitchen door and followed Jack in. “Hey, Bitty,” he said.

“Hey there!”

“Did you know that Jack has a crush on someone?”

Jack sighed and let his head fall back. “Shitty, I don’t – ”

“Oh, boy!” Bitty said, turning back towards the oven and started to pour the batter he’d been holding into a pan. “Who’s the lucky lady?”

If Jack didn’t know better, he’d say that Bitty looked tense. But since that didn’t make sense, Jack used Occam’s Razor and figured that Bitty just didn’t want to spill any of his mix.

“He won’t tell me,” Shitty lamented. “Keeps goin’ on about how he absolutely doesn’t have a crush on anyone.”

Bitty turned and raised an eyebrow at Shitty after that. “You know, he may be telling the truth there, Shitty.”

“‘He’ is right here, boys,” Jack muttered. He was ignored.

“As best friend,” Shitty told Bittle seriously, “I just _know_ things sometimes.”

Jack shook his head and caught Bitty’s eye. “I honestly don’t know what he’s talking about.”

“I will get to the bottom of this,” Shitty warned.

“Good luck,” Jack replied dryly. He turned back to Bitty. “What’re you baking?”

Bitty grinned and started prattling on about the new muffin recipe he was trying. As Jack watched his friend talk, he could have sworn he saw Shitty give him a knowing look out of the corner of his eye. Maybe Shitty _did_ know things.

~

Jack was trying to study in his room when Shitty burst in through their shared bathroom, clad only in pink floral-print boxers, and flopped on his bed.

“So,” Shitty said. “Bitty.”

“What about Bitty?” Jack asked, not taking his eyes off his work. He wasn’t actually reading anymore, just sitting poised with a highlighter in his hand, hovering it just over the text.

“You like him.”

Jack tensed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Shitty threw a pillow at the back of his head. “Don’t lie to me, Zimmermann.”

“I’m not lying.”

Jack could hear Shitty moving on the bed and when he glanced back, Shitty was in a sitting position, looking at the back of Jack’s head solemnly. “Jack, bro, I love you. You can tell me if you like Bittle; I’m not gonna spill.”

“Of course I know you wouldn’t tell anyone, Shitty,  but there’s nothing to tell.” Jack spun his chair around and gave Shitty a half-shrug. “Sorry to disappoint.”

Shitty stood up and walked over to where Jack was sitting, placing a hand on his shoulder and looking down at him dramatically. “Okay; just remember, it’s _okay_ –”

“- to be bi. Yeah, I remember, you told me when we were frogs. Just because I’m bi doesn’t mean I have a crush on _literally everyone_ , Shitty.”

“I’m proud of you, my glorious Quebecois clam,” Shitty said before walking out.

Jack watched his back in confusion and then turned back around to see Bitty walking down the hallway. He panicked for a split second, worried that Bitty had heard him talking to Shitty, but then rationalized that if Bitty was just coming up now then he’d only heard Shitty’s version of a compliment.

“Hey,” he called out into the hall. “Didn’t know you were back yet.”

Bitty looked startled, like he’d been in deep thought. “Hm? Oh, yeah, study group wrapped up early because Ransom was in pre-test mode and Holster was protecting him and between that there wasn’t much area to actually _study_.”

Jack nodded. “I’ve been there. I don’t usually join their study groups anymore because of that.”

“Well, I’ve learned my lesson.” Bitty unlocked his door and pushed it open. “I have a paper due, anyway. See you at practise.”

“See you,” Jack responded, but the door was already closed.

~

They were at Annie’s drinking coffee and Bittle said, shyly, “You know what the _first thing_ that the _first person_ I came out to asked me?” He looked up from his coffee for only a second to make sure that Jack was, in fact, listening to him. “She asked if I had a crush on anyone, and when I said no, she asked me how I could possibly know I was gay, then.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Jack said, taking a sip of his coffee.

“Exactly. I just… I don’t know, I just wanted you to know I don’t plan to get involved with Shitty’s antics to figure out your crush – slash – if you even have a crush.”

Jack wondered what Bitty would say if he knew that Jack did have a crush, and if he knew that it was on him. He shook that thought away quickly. “Thanks, Bittle. I appreciate it, but I think Shitty’s bored of that now; he’ll probably leave it alone.”

Bitty nodded and took a big sip of his coffee. “That’s good. I _hate_ when people bother me about crushes.” He shuddered.

Jack grinned widely, “Do you _like_ anyone, Bitty?” he asked, nudging Bitty’s foot under the table with his own.

The blond looked down, the tips of his ears turning red. “Not at the moment,” he said. Jack could tell that it was a lie, but he didn’t press it, even though knowing that Bittle liked someone – someone that wasn’t Jack – made the pit of his stomach drop just a little.

~

Jack walked into Shitty’s room without knocking and laid down on his friends’ bed, wrapping both his arms around the pillow and burying his face in it.

“Do you wanna talk?” Shitty asked after a moment.

In response, Jack just groaned wordlessly into the pillow.

“Gonna have to speak up, bud.”

Raising his face slightly off the pillow, Jack said, “You were right,” before dropping back down and rolling onto his back – keeping the pillow over his face as he went.

“I usually am, but what about this time?”

Jack lifted the pillow. “Bitty,” he responded. He dropped the pillow.

Shitty didn’t respond right away and Jack almost checked to make sure he hadn’t just walked away – to do what, Jack wasn’t sure. He hadn’t gotten that far in his reasoning.

“What are you gonna do about it?” Shitty asked eventually.

Now, Jack did remove the pillow, instead clutching it to his chest. He looked at Shitty despondently. “Wasn’t planning on doing anything about it.”

“You should tell him.” Shitty sounded like he’d made his own mind up about what Jack should do, which caused Jack to shoot him a scathing look.

“No.”

“What do you have to lose, honestly?” Shitty asked. “You graduate in two months. If it goes south, well – you never have to talk to him again.”

Jack cringed. “He’s my _friend_ , Shitty. I’d like to keep that, at least.”

“I can do recon if you want, find out if it’s mutual.”

“Don’t you think that would be ‘taking advantage of his trust’?”

Shitty shrugged. “It would be in the name of a good cause.”

“Please don’t.”

“You know you want me to.”

Jack put the pillow back on top of his face. “Leave me alone.”

“Bro, you’re literally in my bed. I should be asking _you_ to leave me alone.”

Instead of replying, Jack just tossed the pillow in Shitty’s general direction.

~

Jack bought things for Bitty a lot more than ‘normal friends’ do, he knew. He tried to keep it to food, because food isn’t _overly_ expensive and his father _is_ rich, so he figured it was easily explainable.

And then Betsy broke.

He wrote it off as ‘really being for the Haus’ but he was fairly certain that no one was fooled. Before Bitty, the oven rarely, if ever, got used, and chances were that after he was gone it would go back to the state it had been in before.

When he was honest with himself, he could admit that he didn’t care how transparent he was. Jack didn’t want to voice his feelings, but if Bitty figured them out on his own then it was an entirely different story.

~

Jack couldn’t remember what the party was for – he wasn’t even sure if there had been a reason at all; it wasn’t like college kids _needed_ one for getting excessively drunk and doing stupid things. What he did know was that he was hungry, and between his room and the kitchen was loud music and the scent of alcohol mingling with body spray.

By some miracle, he got to the kitchen without incident. The only other person in there was Bitty, who didn’t seem to be baking anything for once. He was sitting at the table with his phone out, tapping away quickly.

“You know, I’m beginning to think that your phone is glued to your hands,” Jack chirped (though, admittedly, it was a pathetic chirp) as he opened the fridge and pulled out an apple.

Bitty looked up and rolled his eyes before placing his phone face-down on the table and holding his hands up to show that they were empty. “Ha-ha, you’re hilarious. Just because you think fire is magic doesn’t mean _some_ of us don’t see the _benefits_ of technology over the flaws.”

Jack took a bite out of his apple and sat down next to Bittle. “I guess I just don’t understand why people use social media; most of my life, my relationship with it has been seeing people critique me and my choices.” He took another bite. “And we have to learn from history, right? Even before twitter and… everything else, the people who were most public got most successful but also usually ended up assassinated.”

“I don’t think anyone’s going to assassinate me, Jack,” Bitty said, giving Jack a sideways smile that kind of made Jack’s heart melt – not that he’d admit to that.

“I hope not.” Jack shifted to knock their knees together and he watched as Bitty’s ears turned red. “Have you been drinking tonight?”

Bitty shook his head and then paused. “I had a few beers but that was at the start of the party so it’s probably out of my blood by now.” He shrugged. “I feel sober. Why?”

Jack hesitated. “I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t reading anything wrong.” He shifted again so he was facing Bitty as well as he could in the chair. Slowly, he put one hand on the side of Bitty’s neck. “Is this… okay?”

Bitty nodded, the blush now having spread from his ears across his face. Jack leaned forwards slowly, maintaining eye contact as he moved. Before he knew it, they were kissing, and his eyes had shut of their own accord. Seemingly by mutual decision, they were moving to deepen the kiss when they were interrupted by a familiar voice entering the kitchen.

“Look at you guys!” Shitty said excitedly, sounding like a kid in a candy store. If that kid was nearing their mid-twenties and completely baked.

Jack and Bitty jumped apart, both blushing a deep red but unable to take their eyes off each other. Shitty came up between them and clapped a hand on each of their shoulders. “Gettin’ your act together – ‘m proud of you.” He straightened up and started to leave the kitchen. “Don’t stop on my account, crazy kids.”

They were silent for a beat before they burst out laughing.

“I should finish my apple,” Jack said.

“We should do that again sometime,” Bitty responded.

Jack grinned. “Yeah, I’d like that.” He bit into his apple. “You know, a few weeks ago, when Shitty was hounding me about a crush… he was right.” Jack looked down at the table, tracing the grain with the hand that wasn’t holding an apple. “I had a crush on you. Still do, by the way.”

“That’s good,” Bitty said. “I’m kinda fond of you, myself.”

“Good,” Jack agreed. “That’s really good” He smiled and leaned back towards Bitty, pressing a quick kiss to his lips before moving and taking another bite from his apple. The future wasn’t certain – he didn’t know yet if this would ultimately ruin their friendship or not, he didn’t know how this would affect his NHL career, he didn’t know much of anything – but, for the time being, he felt like it would really be alright. At least for a while.

 


End file.
